Once Again, Power Laws Rule all Media & Digital Inequality is Unavoidable

by Adam Thierer on November 29, 2009 · Comments

Facebook power lawPerfect media equality is impossible.  There has never been anything close to “equal outcomes” when it comes to the distribution or relative success of old media: books, magazines, music, movies, book, theater tickets, etc.  A small handful of titles have always dominated, usually according to a classic “power law” or “80-20? distribution, with roughly 20% of the titles getting 80% of the traffic / revenue.

But here’s the really interesting thing: This trend is increasing, not decreasing, for newer and more “democratic” online media.  As I pointed out in two previous essays ["YouTube, Power Laws & the Persistence of Media Inequality" & "Cuban on Fragmentation & Attention in the Blogosphere (or Why Power Laws Really Do Govern All Media)"], there is solid evidence that blogs, YouTube, Twitter, and other digital media outlets and platforms not only follow a classic power law distribution but that the distribution is even more heavily skewed toward the “fat head” of the distribution curve, not “the long tail” of it.

The latest evidence of the persistence of power laws across media comes from Facebook. Erick Schonfeld has a new essay up at TechCrunch (“It’s Not Easy Being Popular. 77 Percent Of Facebook Fan Pages Have Under 1,000 Fans“) highlighting some new findings from an upcoming report by Sysomos, a social media monitoring and analytics firm. Here’s the summary from Schonfeld: Continue reading →

Comments Posted in: First Amendment, Free Speech & Online Child Safety, Media Regulation, Miscellaneous

Will Our Twitter Free Ride End or Will Targeted Advertising Subsidize Us?

by Adam Thierer on September 12, 2009 · Comments

I really appreciate the venture capitalists (VCs) in Silicon Valley subsidizing my soapbox at Twitter.  Seriously, it is an absolutely awesome platform for getting a message out to the masses.  But at some point I worry that the gravy train will come to an end and that users will have to start picking up part of the tab.  After all, will those VCs continue to subsidize Twitter if it never turns a profit?  According to the Wikipedia entry about Twitter:

In total, Twitter has raised over US$57 million from venture capitalists. The exact amounts of funding have not been publicly released. Twitter’s first round of funding was for an undisclosed amount that is rumored to have been between $1 million and $5 million. Its B round of funding in 2008 was for $22 million and its C round of funding in 2009 was for $35 million from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital along with an undisclosed amount from other investors including Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. Twitter is backed by Union Square Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital, and Bezos Expeditions.

Again, thank you VCs!  But, like them, I do wonder when and how Twitter will bring in some cash.  Is there a “freemium” model that could work?  Perhaps.  “Pro” or corporate accounts have been rumored to be in the works.  Getting someone else to pick up the tab that way might bring in enough cash for Twitter to allow the free ride to continue for the rest of us.  But what about advertising?  It’s been the “mother’s milk” of most online media and platforms for some time now, and Twitter seems perfectly suited to insert a few banner ads or contextual ads here and there.  It could be happening sooner than you think. Austin Modine of The Register notes in a new piece, “Twitter ‘Leaves Door Open’ for Targeted Ads,” that: Continue reading →

Comments Posted in: Advertising & Marketing, Privacy, Security & Government Surveillance

Behavioral Advertising Industry Practices Hearing: Some Issues that Need to be Discussed

by Berin Szoka on June 17, 2009 · Comments

by Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer

This morning, the House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices And Consumers’ Expectations.” If nothing else, it promises to be quite entertaining:  With full-time Google bashers Jeff Chester and Scott Cleland on the agenda, the likelihood that top Google officials will be burned in effigy appears high!

Chester, self-appointed spokesman for what one might call the People for the Ethical Treatment of Data (PETD) movement, is sure to rant and rave about the impending techno-apocalypse that will, like all his other Chicken-Little scenarios, befall us all if online advertisers were permitted to better tailor ads to consumers’ liking. After all, can you imagine the nightmare of less annoying ads that might actually convey more useful information to consumers? Isn’t serving up “untargeted” dumb banner ads for Viagra to young women and Victoria’s Secret ads to Catholic school kids the pinnacle of modern online advertising?  Gods forbid we actually make advertising more relevant and interest-based!  (Those Catholic school boys may appreciate the lingerie ads, but few will likely buy bras.)

Anyway, according to National Journal’s Tech Daily Dose, the hearing lineup also includes:

  • Charles Curran, Executive Director, Network Advertising Initiative
  • Christopher Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
  • Edward Felten, Director, Center for IT Policy, Princeton University
  • Anne Toth, Chief Privacy Officer & Vice President, Policy, Yahoo!
  • Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google

That’s an interesting group and we’re sure that they will say interesting things about the issue. Nonetheless, because four of them have a corporate affiliation that fact will inevitably be used by some critics to dismiss what they have to say about the sensibility of more targeted or interest-based forms of online advertising. So, we’d like to offer a few thoughts and pose a few questions to make sure that Committee members understand why, regardless of what it means for any particular online operator, targeting online advertising is very pro-consumer and essential to the future of online content, culture, and competition.  As Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg has noted, “Advertising is the mother’s milk of all the mass media.”  Much of the “free speech” we all cherish isn’t really free, but ad-supported!

Continue reading →

Comments Posted in: Advertising & Marketing, E-Commerce Taxation & Regulation, First Amendment, Free Speech & Online Child Safety, Media Regulation